Tag Archives: interstellar travel

Send me on a spaceship to the nearest star. Let me be the emissary for the people of Earth, the bearer of good will, the one who will foster relations, build bridges towards our neighbors in space. Put me in a deep sleep, pack me in that rocket ship, bound for the heavens, on a course towards the nearest inhabitable solar system. I’ll take everything with me, everything that represents us, the planet Earth, the human race, all of our flags from every nation. Even the crazy nations. Even North Korea and Zimbabwe and Bahrain. Get me out there.

Just shoot me out there and schedule my cryogenic pod to wake me up every hundred years or so. If I get to a planet and there’s no sign of life, I’ll have a snack. Send me with snacks. Send me with enough snacks that if I get to a thousands stellar systems and there’s no sign of life, I’ll at least get to have something good to eat until the ship’s on board computer shuts off life support and forces me to go back into my frozen slumber. Try to send something good. Try to send the McRib. Try to get McDonald’s to freeze dry a thousand McRib sandwiches. If I can’t find alien life, at least let me have a McRib.

Launch me up there with a care package fit for representing the entire Earth’s population. Make a giant Earth flag. Take one square out of every country’s flag and sew them all together to make one giant flag. And then take that giant flag and make that the blue part of an even more giant American flag. Because I’m assuming that the United States is going to be the only country capable of getting me out there, out to the stars, out to our neighboring planets.

I’ll say something like, “We mean you no harm!” I’ll proclaim, “We seek peaceful coexistence!” Send me to Mars first. Get me to Mars and I’ll walk around that red ball of rust and I’ll pretend like I’ve reached somewhere habitable. Make me a spacesuit that looks like I’m not actually wearing a space suit. This will be my trial run. It’ll be one last chance for the people of Earth to see me before I blast out of our solar system for good.

Send me with a dog. A pet. We’ll name him Astro, not after the Jetsons’ dog, although they had a dog named Astro too, but we’ll be naming him after space, after astronomy and astrophysics and astronauts the Astros and the astral plane. Go back into the vaults of cartoon TV history. Go find all old episodes of the Jetsons. Edit all existing footage to change Astro the cartoon dog’s name to something else, like Spacely. But the boss’s name was Spacely also, wasn’t it? So go back and change his name to something else too, like Johnson, or Richards. Something else. My dog Astro probably wouldn’t be able to be woken up as much as I would be, because dogs only live like thirteen years, and then even though our lives will have been extended with all of the stasis induced slumber, still, I’ll outlive him, and he being my only companion, I’ll be devastated to see him die before we’ve reached any destination worthy of our journey. Actually, I kind of like the name Spacely also. OK, so yeah, now I’m probably just ripping off the Jetsons outright, but whatever, we’ve got the resources to send me to space, to send a dog to space, go back to the footage, change Spacely’s name to something else, like some other dog name, or whatever, just get rid of the Jetsons entirely, because it’s a bullshit show that didn’t even come close to predicting how the future would turn out. Send me with two dogs. Three or four dogs. Two Spacelys and two Astros. Just in case some die. Or even better, alternate how they get woken up, so that way they’ll all last longer.

Don’t forget the guns. Don’t forget my space weaponry. I’m not one to back down from a space fight. What if I get boarded? What if some aliens deactivate my ship while I’m in stasis? Make some sort of a decoy stasis machine. Get a duplicate, not a duplicate, another person, a patsy, somebody to come along for the ride, but never to be woken up. Design the ship so that way if we get boarded, the aliens will see this guy’s pod first, and make it so if his pod is tampered with, mine will automatically wake me up. Also, put me to sleep with a space gun in each hand, that way I’ll sneak up behind the alien and I’ll tell him something like, “Friend! Relax! I come in peace. I seek peaceful coexistence,” and as the alien lowers his weapon I’ll raise mine and fire without hesitation.

Get me off of this planet. Let me be the first to travel out there, past the moon, past Mars, I’ll take pictures of that Methane moon off of Saturn and that other frozen moon off of Jupiter, not in that order, obviously, that would be a little counter productive. I’m the man for the job. I’ve got what it takes. Blast me off. I’ll sit back and count back from ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, all the way, blast me off, seriously, do it, come on.